


Broken Mirror

by TheSilverPhoenix



Series: Hetaween 2020 [3]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Dimensions, Alternate Universe - Horror, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Coraline AU, F/F, Haunted mansion, Hetaween, Kidnapping, Magic, Nyotalia, Psychological Horror, Supernatural Creatures, Suspense, ghost mansion, prompt 3, prompt 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:13:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27155731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSilverPhoenix/pseuds/TheSilverPhoenix
Summary: Alice Kirkland should've stayed away from the Manor. She should've listened to everyone who'd told her the place was cursed.But she hadn't.Now she had to pay the price.
Relationships: America/England (Hetalia)
Series: Hetaween 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1977382
Kudos: 11





	1. The Curse of Beldam Mansion

The Beldam Mansion was one of the oldest houses in town. It sat at the top of a large hill on the outskirts, just barely within the town’s boundaries, and its grounds stretched to the base of the hill, guarded by an intimidating iron-cast gate and a tall stone wall. Long ago the house had probably been beautiful. It was large and ornate, stretching across the top of the hill and towering four stories high, and the landscape that surrounded it was filled with lush foliage and trees. Unfortunately, time hadn’t favored the estate. The house had been abandoned years before and its beauty had rotted away as nature reclaimed it. Vines had overtaken the exterior and cracked the window panes, exposing the interior to the harsh elements and tearing at the delicate furnishings and decor that remained there. The grounds, left unattended, had decayed into a wild, untamed mess. The grass had grown tall and weeds had overtaken the flower beds, killing the delicate and vibrant assortment of flowers that had once grown there. Even the gate and its stone wall had broken under time’s stress. The gate’s bars had been warped and bent into mangled shapes and parts of the stone wall had crumbled to the ground in heaps of grey stone.

The Beldam Mansion was unwelcoming and cold, a far cry from its glory days, which was why most of the locals believed it was cursed. According to the town’s records, the Beldam family, who had owned the mansion, had disappeared underneath mysterious circumstances. They’d left no notice or indication that they’d been leaving the town and all of their belongings had remained in their rightful places. When the police had investigated, food had been on the dinner table, candles had burnt down to the last of their wicks, and the animals of the household had been wandering about the estate. They’d never been found.

The curse, however, came about when the town had sold the mansion. Family after family had bought the house and moved in, and one by one each family moved out, disappearing as if they’d never lived there at all. It was an unsettling recurrence that led to the deterioration of the estate and the rise of whispers amongst the locals.

No one who goes into the mansion ever comes out, they said. And it stuck. No one ever went to the mansion because they feared the consequences, feared what it held insides its walls.

Alice Kirkland thought it was all bullshit.

The minute she’d heard about the so-called ‘curse’ she’d scoffed, rolled her eyes and went back to what-ever she’d been doing. Magic, she knew, wasn’t real and all the curse nonsense sounded like some poorly constructed scheme by some local teenagers that had gotten out of hand.

The girl who’d warned her, Madeline Williams, had insisted upon its validity and said that her cousin, Amelia, had said the same thing when she’d come to live with them after her parents’ deaths. She’d disappeared nearly a year before and, while Alice felt sympathy for Madeline, it didn’t change her stance. Amelia had sounded like a troubled kid and had probably just run off without saying anything to anyone. It was just a coincidence.

Her stubborn disbelief in the curse was what had prompted her older siblings’ bet. Alice was the youngest of all the Kirkland siblings. She was the scrawniest, the smallest, and always the brunt of the brutal jokes, so she never really seemed to fit in or stand out amongst her older, better liked, siblings, even to her parents. That meant that she was always gunning to prove herself the best of them all, and she normally did it in the pettiest of ways. The lime-light was brief, sometimes accompanied by a grounding or the promise of payback, but it was always worth it. So when her siblings dared her, she couldn’t refuse. It was a matter of pride.

It was what had led most of the Kirkland siblings to the old, bent iron gate of Beldam Mansion.

It was mid-day on a bright, shining Saturday. The sky was completely clear and the breeze was warm and comforting. The day was nearly perfect and Alice almost regretted having to spend it on the Beldam estate when she could be doing literally anything else.

But she had a bet to win, so here she was.

Six hours, she just had to spend six hours inside the Mansion. From noon to six. Then, her siblings would take her home for dinner and she’d enjoy the sweet taste of victory, plus her own room in their new house. Not being constantly berated by one of her siblings was going to be great. She’d even be able to lock the door and everything. She couldn’t wait.

“No cheatin’,” Aileen said, crossing her arms and glaring at her suspiciously. “If you leave, we’ll know.”

“I’m sure you will,” Alice scoffed back, knowing for certain that her siblings definitely would not know if she left. She glanced at the gate, then at a crumbled section of the wall right next to it. That was her way in. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a bet to win.”

The Kirkland siblings watched as Alice stepped over the pile of stone and fearlessly plunged into the thick foliage surrounding the Beldam Mansion. 

It didn’t take her long to get to the Mansion. Though the trees and the foliage around her seemed to scream ‘ _ Turn back!’ _ , she stuck to the pathway guiding her to the Mansion, which was overgrown with wild weeds and uncut grass. It was far more intimidating up close than it did from the bottom of the hill. Standing on the Mansion’s steps, Alice could see the detail of the building’s architecture and how the vines had defaced its walls and statues. She could see how the glass shards of the broken window panes glinted in the sun and how the front door hung open in a silent invitation. Most of all, she could feel how the fresh air turned stale the closer she stepped and how she could feel the faintest sensation of prying eyes on the back of her neck.

_ Maybe coming here wasn’t such a good idea _ , Alice couldn’t help but think. She looked up at the other three stories above her. Surely the building wasn’t safe to be in, right? The outside alone looked like it should be condemned. But then she thought of the bet. She’d never had a room to herself before, it had always been her and someone else because she was the youngest and she didn’t get first pick. This was her chance to finally have her own space, for however brief a time they were going to live in this town. She wasn’t going to give it up because some old, decrepit building scared her.

Alice took one last breath of fresh air and stepped through the threshold of Beldam Mansion.

It was a little disappointing when nothing happened.

She didn’t know what she’d been expecting exactly. A flash of fear before her sudden death? A giant pit to swallow her whole? The slamming of the front door behind her?

No. None of that, because magic wasn’t real and the Mansion was not cursed. It was just an old, abandoned building that she had to spend six hours in. Easy.

So Alice was left standing in the large entryway of the Mansion. Sunlight filtered through the doorway and windows, bathing the space in bright light and revealing the ghost of grandeur that had once been there. The white paint on the walls was yellowed and peeling, the furniture was ragged and dusty, and the carpeting was soggy and molded. It was...sad. A true tragedy, in Alice’s eyes, that such extravagance had wasted away for no reason. 

Alice gave a small, sad sigh to the empty entryway and drew her eyes to the doorways branching to other wings of the Mansion. Six hours was a lot of time to fill, so she might as well explore what other treasures the Mansion had held at one point.

Walking over the discolored carpet and onto warped hardwood floors, Alice made her way down the first hallway to the left of the entryway. Sunlight, streaming in from the windows lining the wall, lit her way as she observed the faded, sunbleached painting hanging precariously on the peeling wall and noticed the corpses of long-dead flowers wilting in their vases. Though she didn’t believe in any curse, she figured the Beldam family surely had a good reason for leaving such an estate. Perhaps they’d been threatened and had decided to leave the town or maybe they had been murdered and their bodies had never been found.

Morbid thoughts to explain peculiar circumstances.

As Alice mused over her own thoughts, she came across the first room of the household. The door was slightly ajar, revealing a sliver of the room within. Alice peaked in, before pushing the door fully open. It was a smaller room, sparsely decorated, with a cold fireplace on the left wall and a wooden table with chairs in its center. It was what decorated the far wall that interested Alice the most.

A mirror hung on the far wall of the room, reaching from floor to ceiling, that was pristinely placed to reflect the entirety of the room, including the doorway Alice stood in. She found her own reflection absent from it. It was surrounded by an ornate frame, carved from a rich, dark wood that seemed to call to her, begging for her to look closer, to come closer. Alice didn’t even realize she’d stepped forward until she was inches away from the cool glass.

It was weird, the mirror. Everything in the Mansion seemed to have been touched by time - each surface was coated in layers of thick dust and each item was decayed and rotten. She’d seen it with her own eyes. Everything, it seemed, except the mirror. Its glass was flawlessly polished and its frame smooth and unblemished by dust. The mirror was clean. And so was the room it reflected.

Alice didn’t understand. She’d seen mirrors that used light refraction to make people’s reflections disappear, it was common enough, but never to change the entire look of a room. It had to be some sort of trick, surely. Maybe it was just an extremely detailed picture or an LED screen instead of glass? A projection? A weird funhouse mirror?

She looked around the room, just to make sure the room hadn’t changed. It hadn’t. It was still rotting and dusty and unkempt. So how was the room within the mirror clean and bright and tidy? It didn’t make any sense.

Alice frowned and scowled the mirror. She didn’t understand and she didn’t like not understanding.

She raised a hand to touch the glass. Maybe it could reveal something? But instead of feeling the slight heat of an LED screen or the small, raised strokes of a painting, her fingertips brushed against the cold, seamless glass of a mirror. Alice hummed and worked her jaw, trying to think of another explanation.

Before she could pull away to examine the mirror further, however, Alice felt a sharp tug in her gut. Her entire body jerked forwards, towards the glass of the mirror, but instead of tumbling into the hard surface, Alice’s body fell straight through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, hello, hello everyone, I'm back for day 3 of hetaween! This one is kind've weird because I've switched prompts 3 and 4. Why? Because this is a two-shot! The prompt for this chapter was ghost mansion. To avoid spoilers, I'll add more tags on Saturday when I post chapter 2, but I will say that there's a little hint in the first chapter as to what is going on. Enjoy!
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](https://silverphoenixwrites.tumblr.com/), [Twitter](https://twitter.com/sil_phoenix), and [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/silverphoenix)!


	2. The Other Side

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the addition of extra tags

Alice didn’t know what the fuck was going on. She didn’t know why the mirror wasn’t a mirror, she didn’t know where the non-mirror had taken her, and she didn’t know how the hell she was going to get back. Touching the mirror again certainly didn’t work.

What she did know was that she was definitely in the Beldam Mansion. A cleaner, more well-kept Beldam Mansion, but the same Mansion nonetheless. That was it. That was all she knew.

She had to find help. She had to get out and find help and get back to where she’d come from. Alice didn’t know about ‘curse’, but there was definitely something very not normal going on here and she didn’t know how long she’d be able to keep it together before she lost her mind completely.

Swallowing her quickly rising panic, Alice sprinted towards the door to the now-plush room and threw it open.

Only to be met with another person.

Blood froze in her veins and she scrambled to apologize and explain herself - before her eyes caught sight of the person in front of her and the words caught in the middle of her throat.

The woman was...her mother?

But most certainly  _ not _ her actual mother. Because instead of her mother’s bright green eyes, there were large, black buttons sewn into the sockets of her eyes.

“Alice, dear!” her not-mother said cheerily, her voice an exact copy of her real mother’s. A wide smile spread on her face. Exactly the same. “It is so nice of you to finally join us! We’ve been waiting a long time for you.”

“I...I...what?”

Her not-mother’s smile just widened - kind and warm. Alice couldn’t remember the last time her real mother had smiled at her like that.

Not-mother brushed past her, holding up a tray with a fresh pot of tea on it. It smelled like Earl Grey. She set the tray on the table and turned back to her.

“I made your favorite, I figured it would be a nice, warm welcome,” not-mother explained, gesturing to the tea set. How she knew Earl Grey was Alice’s favorite, she didn’t know. Alice didn’t think her own mother knew that. Not-mother poured a cup and offered it to her. She took it, not taking her eyes off of her not-mother. The only real difference was - “Oh, don’t worry about the eyes, dear.”

Shit, she’d been staring.

“It was merely a price I had to pay to be here.”

“Here?” Alice finally said, watching the not-mother carefully. The woman didn’t seem like a threat, but she had already experienced enough today to know to not judge a book by the cover. “Where is here?”

Her not-mother looked at her, the black buttons emotionless and cold. “Why, the Other World, of course. Don’t worry, I am sure you’ll like it here very much.”

“I’m sure I would…” Alice muttered, setting the cup of tea down. Not-mother’s smile didn’t fade. “But I really must be getting back. My family -”

“Won’t even know you’re gone,” the woman finished. The statement should’ve set off warning bells in Alice’s head, but the hint of sad sympathy in her not-mother’s voice made her realize it was true. “They don’t appreciate you, Alice. With all of those siblings of yours, you get lost in the background. But you deserve as much attention and love as the rest of them. I can give you that here.”

In the few minutes Alice had known this woman, she’d struck deep into Alice’s heart. It should’ve scared Alice, that her not-mother had picked her apart so quickly, but it didn’t. Something was lulling about the woman, comforting in the soft way she spoke and the warm way she smiled. 

“Of course, you are sensible enough to not trust me,” she said, her kind smile turning into a small, understanding one. “I am a stranger to you and there is no reason for you to suddenly agree to something so soon after you’ve arrived. So, how about you stay for the week? Experience what your life could be, what I could give you, and if you still wish to return at the end, then I will return you to your world.”

“But my family…”

“Time works differently here, dear,” her not-mother explained patiently, taking her hand and giving it a gentle pat. “A week here would only be a couple of hours there.”

Only a couple of hours? That was...odd. She should be getting back to her world and she should go as soon as possible. But if it was only a couple of hours...surely a couple of hours wouldn’t hurt anything?

Alice felt herself giving a faint nod. “I suppose a couple of hours couldn’t hurt…”

A huge smile spread across her not-mother’s face and Alice couldn’t help but feel she’d made the right decision.

-

It’d been two days since she’d come to the Other World and Alice felt like she’d already decided on whether or not to stay. True to her word, her not-mother, or Other Mother, as she preferred to be called, had made her feel more loved than any of her actual family had. There were no Other Siblings, not even an Other Father. Just her and Other Mother, who’d given Alice her own room, all the books she could ask for, and any type of tea she wanted. The Other World was practically perfect in every way.

It was that night when a crack in the glass appeared.

She’d been reading just before bed - she’d been tearing through books like crazy - alone when she heard a faint  _ bang _ from the floor above her room. She ignored it, Alice was used to all sorts of banging and clanging in her world and she’d grown used to turning it out. But then, there was another _ bang _ , followed by screaming and yelling.

A chill ran through Alice’s veins, like a liquid frost. The yelling voice wasn’t Other Mother’s. There was someone else in the house. Someone else Other Mother hadn’t told her about. She glared up at the ceiling. Was there another person here trying to take Other Mother away from her? If the other person was better than her, would Alice still be allowed to stay in the Other World, or would she be forced to leave?

When the yelling faded away, Alice snapped her book closed, too distracted by her thoughts to continue with the story, and went to bed.

-

“Is there someone else here?” Alice asked the Other Mother on day four after she’d finally built up the nerve to ask her. She was afraid of the answer, but she needed to know. She didn’t want to get her hopes up if she couldn’t stay.

Other Mother’s smile froze and her cup of tea stopped halfway to her mouth. “What?”

“Is there someone else here?” Alice repeated, eyebrows furrowing. “I...I thought I head someone the other night and...well, I thought you were trying to replace me.”

“Oh, my dear Alice, of course not,” Other Mother answered, voice full of sympathy and understanding. “I would never try to replace you.”

Something about Other Mother’s answer didn’t soothe the worry in her.

-

On day six, Alice decided to find the other person. She was sure that there was someone else, another girl, somewhere in the Mansion, and with her week in the Other World coming to a close, she had to know for sure that Other Mother wasn’t trying to replace her.

So she made her way to the upper floors of the Mansion as soon as the lights in the Mansion had been turned out and Other Mother had gone to sleep. Alice crept through each room in each corridor and continually found nothing. With each open door, Alice’s fears were put to rest. Her and Other Mother could live happily together without anyone else interfering. Alice could be happy here, really happy. She hadn’t been this happy in a long, long time.

She almost didn’t check the attic. When Other Mother had given her a tour of the Mansion, she’d told Alice it was ‘far too dangerous’ to enter. Alice had dismissed it and never thought about it again. But when it came to her search, Alice knew she could leave no stone unturned.

The door to the attic opened with a slow, painful creak and revealed a large, dark room. And the sight within made Alice freeze in place. She suddenly knew why Other Mother had told her not to come here and why Other Mother had denied the presence of another person so adamantly. Because there wasn’t another person vying for Other Mother’s affections - Other Mother was holding another person hostage.

The girl chained to one of the attic support beams was proof enough for that.

“What the fuck…”

The other girl shot up from her place in the corner of the attic, her blue eyes widened in surprise.

“Oh my god, another person,” the girl said, not taking her eyes off of Alice. They looked desperate, pleading. Something about that fear didn’t seem right to Alice and she wanted to do everything in her power to erase it. “Please, you have to help me. The lady here, with the button eyes, she trapped me -”

“Other Mother did this to you?” Alice asked, mind racing to find some other possible solution. Surely Other Mother had a good reason, right? Right?

But what other answer could there be?

“Yes,” the stranger answered. Tears were welling up in her eyes and Alice desperately wanted to stop it. She didn’t know this girl, but Alice knew those eyes would look so much pretty when she was carefree and laughing. Why did she know that? “Yes, please, she kidnapped me and when I wanted to go home she chained me up. Please, you have to believe me, she’s not human.”

Cold dread washed over her, like a bucket of ice water shocking her from a deep, lulling sleep. Other Mother wasn’t human. Other Mother was trying to keep people here - keep her here - for something. Something not good. Because if this other girl was here, then there’d been others before Alice. And in this whole Mansion, it was just them. What had happened to them?

Alice looked back at the open attic door, making sure to check that Other Mother hadn’t snuck up on her. The hallway behind her was empty.

She rushed to the other girl and looked at the chain connecting her to the support beam. It was a simple lock, in fact, it was the same lock her sisters’ used to keep her out of their trunks back home. Home. Jesus, what had she been thinking? Staying here? Abandoning her family? They were all assholes, sure, but they were still family.

“Don’t worry,” Alice said, her voice no more than a whisper, for fear of echoing and drawing Other Mother to them. She pulled a bobby pin from her hair and snapped it in half to use it as a lock pick - she was a snoopy little sister after all. “I’m going to get you out of here.”

The other girl stifled a sob when the lock clicked open and the chain fell away. “Thank fuck. Thank you, thank you.”

Alice nodded and helped the other girl to her feet. “I know where the mirror is, if we make a break for it, then we can get there before -”

“Before what, Alice dear?”

The sickly sweet voice that had lulled her into complacency over the past week sang through the room. It was gut-churning.

Other Mother stood in the doorway to the attic, a broad smile on her face and cold, black button eyes staring at both of them.

“I’m very disappointed in both of you,” Other Mother said, still smiling, “I’ve opened my home and you’ve gone and ruined it by snooping around.”

“You’re keeping a prisoner in your attic.”

Other Mother stepped further into the room, towards them. Alice and the other girl backed away.

“Amelia just needed more time to adjust to this world.”

Alice frowned. That name, she’d heard that name before. Amelia...Amelia, as in Madeline’s cousin Amelia? As in the Amelia that had disappeared a year before? Alice glanced at the other girl, looking at her closely. Now that she was looking for it, she could certainly see the family resemblance. Jesus, how much had Amelia endured?

“Amelia wants to go home,” Alice spat back, “and so do I.”

“Oh,” the woman said, her smile twitching into a frown. “What a shame...I didn’t want to have to do this.”

Other Mother twitched as she took another step forward, then another, and another, and another. And with each step, her body changed - flesh sunk away until her skin was tight against her bones, and her body elongated into grotesque proportions, towering over the two girls as they watched in horror.

Before Alice could do or say anything, it was Amelia who jumped into action. The other girl, in as bad of shape as she was, move impressively quick - taking the chain that had bound her to the attic beam and locking it another Other Mother’s ankle before she could lunge at them. Amelia grabbed Alice’s hand as her second move and pulled her towards the door.

“Run!” she shouted as if they weren’t already in a dead sprint. Alice took the lead, weaving through the hallways and the rooms and the staircases, blazing her way to the mirror room in a blind panic. Her entire body was screaming for exertion and adrenaline and the primal need to get out, get out, get out.

Alice burst into the mirror room, with Amelia hot on her tail, and plunged through the mirror without hesitation - back into her own world. She’d never been happier to see a decaying, decrepit room in her entire life. She was even more overjoyed to see Amelia fall to the floor behind her.

An angry, primal roar ripped through the air, and the glass of the mirror quivered with its force.

“Break the mirror!” Amelia shouted, frantically looking around for something heavy and sturdy enough to break the heavy glass. Alice picked up the first thing she laid her eyes on - a chair sitting at the table - and slammed it into the mirror with as much force she could muster.

The impact created a crack in the glass. From the Other World, Other Mother burst through the door of the room and let out another roar. Alice hit the glass again. And again. And again. The crack in the glass grew wider and wider with each hit. The chair fell apart in Alice’s hands. She had nothing.

Other Mother stalked towards the mirror and her long, skeletal finger reached out for them.

Amelia smashed the glass, swinging a metal fire poker like a baseball bat. The image of Other Mother shattered as the glass of the mirror fell from the frame and shattered across the floor. The frame of the mirror was empty.

Silence fell between the two girls. Until it was broken by Amelia’s sobs.

Alice went over to the other girl and wrapped her up in a hug, trying to be as comforting as possible without making her feel any worse.

“It’s over,” Alice said. She didn’t know if it was more for Amelia or herself. “It’s over.”

Gently, Alice led Amelia from the Beldam Mansion. The night outside was cool and crisp.

Alice found her siblings by the gate. Other Mother had been right, it seemed. Days there were only hours here. She wondered how long Amelia had been in the Other World if she’d been gone for a year. When her siblings saw her, she could see the cocky smiles morph into concerned frowns. A rarity - one she appreciated at the moment.

“Alice, what -”

“A hospital, Alieen,” Alice said, too tired to put any sort of snide remark in it. “She needs a hospital.”

Alice didn’t add that she, too, probably needed one. She wasn’t sure she was okay.

Without another word, her siblings piled her and Alice into their car.

Safe. They were safe.

For now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 of Broken Glass! Since the first chapter was for prompt 4, this one was for prompt 3, which was 'supernatural creatures'. I hope you all enjoyed!
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](https://silverphoenixwrites.tumblr.com/), [Twitter](https://twitter.com/sil_phoenix), and [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/silverphoenix)!


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